1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a surveying system. In particular, the invention relates to a surveying system having an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of establishing construction gridlines at the construction site from the construction drawings.
2. Related Art
Surveying is the technique of accurately determining the three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them, utilizing in part geometry and trigonometry. In surveying, various kinds of surveying instruments, such as theodolites or total stations, are commonly used for measuring distances and/or angles of objects. Conventionally, these surveying instruments are mounted on a stand to stably position the surveying instrument on the ground and have a head that may be moved with respected to the stand. The head generally includes an optical device, such as a ranging or sighting device for focusing on an object.
Typically, construction drawings are made up of a site layout plan and a floor plan, which will contain gridlines for the desired dimensions of the construction. In order to establish the gridlines at the construction site, a surveying team will take a government land survey plan featuring true coordinate control points, will establish control points at the construction site, and will then proceed to set out the gridlines at the construction site. This is typically achieved by one surveyor manning a total station at a known given point and at least one additional surveyor manning a target and physically moving the target into sight of the total station at set locations to establish the gridlines. This method, however, can be cumbersome in that it requires a team of skilled surveyors to man the total station and the targets to physically mark the control lines.
Improvements to this method are known in the art, for example, total stations now allow for the construction drawings to be loaded directly into the total station, thereby having the points and elevations contained within the system to speed up and simplify the process of targeting the specific points. However, even with this improvement a team of surveyors is still needed to man the total station and to physically move the target around the construction site.
Further improvements known in the art include remotely controlled total stations, wherein a single surveyor may remotely operate the total station while moving the target from location to location and viewing the sight of the total station via a remote viewing device. However, this still requires a skilled surveyor to operate the total station and move the target from point to point.
As such, there is a need for an improved surveying system that allows for the establishment of site construction gridlines in an easy manner without the need for a team of skilled surveyors.